What's Going On Around The World Today?

A writer in Bangladesh was hacked to death, the latest in a string of murders of atheist and secular bloggers. BuzzFeed News tracked U.S. surveillance planes and found they routinely circle over most major cities. And one of the most lucrative mining contracts in Africa may unravel because of the Panama Papers.

“Because it’s live, there is no way it can be curated,” Zuckerberg said. “And because of that it frees people up to be themselves.”

Facebook Live features include animated reactions in the video, comment playback, an interactive map of live streams, video filters, ability to broadcast just to groups or events, and video categories — as well as a special dedicated button on the home row.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you fast-forward five years and most of the content that people see on Facebook and are sharing on a day-to-day basis is video.” —Mark Zuckerberg

Michelle Rial / BuzzFeed News

Michelle Rial / BuzzFeed News

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you fast-forward five years and most of the content that people see on Facebook and are sharing on a day-to-day basis is video.” —Mark Zuckerberg

Raw, unfiltered video is hot right now. A host of apps launched in 2015 and 2016 — Periscope, Meerkat, Peach, and Beme among them — that try to nail this experience. “This is precisely what Snapchat is so good at, and why it has become such a threat to Facebook,” Honan writes.

A secular blogger in Bangladesh was hacked to death by machete-wielding attackers on Wednesday evening, police said.

A bit of background.

Samad is the latest in a string of well-known atheist and secular bloggers who have been murdered in the country in recent months. The killings of bloggers in Dhaka have instilled fear among young, progressive writers in Bangladesh. Since the murders started, many have left the country or stopped writing.

The day before he was murdered, Samad had written a post on Facebook expressing concerns about the Bangladeshi government and the deterioration of law and order in the country.

U.S. surveillance planes routinely circle over most major cities, but usually take the weekends off, according to a BuzzFeed News analysis.

The government’s airborne surveillance has received little public scrutiny — until now.

BuzzFeed News has assembled an unprecedented picture of the operation’s scale and sweep by analyzing aircraft location data collected by the flight-tracking website Flightradar24 from mid-August to the end of December last year, identifying about 200 federal aircraft. The analysis also found surveillance flight time dropped more than 70% on Saturdays, Sundays, and federal holidays.

The FBI and the DHS would not discuss the reasons for individual flights but told BuzzFeed News that their planes are not conducting mass surveillance.

And a little extra.

The BuzzFeed News analysis also revealed how the government responded to the mass shooting last December in San Bernardino, California. Within 90 minutes of the attack, two planes were circling the scene. Later that afternoon, the FBI plane flew around the home of the two shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik. Farook attended a nearby mosque. Starting Dec. 3, FBI planes traced circles with the mosque near their center, Aldhous and Seife report.

The FBI told BuzzFeed News that it cannot launch investigations based on race, ethnicity, or religion. Shakeel Syed, executive director of an organization representing Southern California’s mosques and Islamic centers, said he’s alarmed that the FBI’s reaction to the San Bernardino attack seems to have been to send its planes to watch the mosque attended by Farook.

BuzzFeed News

Following the San Bernardino attack on Dec. 2, 2015, three different FBI planes flew around the mosque attended by Farook, some circling for more than three hours at a time.

Quick things to know:

The latest on the #PanamaPapers: One of the most lucrative mining contracts in Africa may unravel. It’s a deal between an Israeli diamond dealer and Guinea. (BuzzFeed News) Swiss police raided European soccer body UEFA’s offices to collect files that could shed light on the leaks. (The Guardian) And Canada has no idea how much tax revenue it’s losing to offshore havens. (BuzzFeed News)

LGBT rights: Britain’s only domestic violence charity for LGBT people is facing closure — its government grant still hasn’t arrived. (BuzzFeed News) And Hong Kong airport staff confiscated the ashes of a British man’s husband because they didn’t deem him next of kin. (BuzzFeed News)

And in celebrity news: Lena Dunham will publish books under her own Random House imprint, Lenny. (BuzzFeed News) Janet Jackson is delaying her world tour because she wants to start a family. She was due to play in Las Vegas in May. (BuzzFeed News) And country music icon Merle Haggard has died at 79. (Billboard)

Larry Hulst / Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

Merle Haggard in San Francisco, in 2011.

Happy Thursday

Step inside the secret world of biological museum samples. The archives of the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., have helped experts explore the biological and cultural diversity of our planet, BuzzFeed UK’s Laura Gallant writes. The archives include 30 million insects dried and pinned into boxes and 7 million fish in jars filled with preserving liquids. Insane.